


Phoenix

by Razega



Series: An Adventurer's Guide to Romance [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Angst, Apothecary Yixing, Baker Junmyeon, F/M, Fletcher Jongdae, Fluff, Head Cook Kyungsoo, Kennel Master Sehun, Knight Captain Chanyeol, Prince Baekhyun, Romance, Smut, Tailors Son Jongin, Tavern Owner Minseok, but these are their individual stories, one overhead plot and timeline ties these together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:09:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24478480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Razega/pseuds/Razega
Summary: A series of fics all related and tied together by one overhead plot and timeline.Draugers are encroaching on the kingdom of Exoltaria, and it's up to an Adventure Party hired by the King to stop them, but is that all they will face?A spritely Prince plays a secretive Robin Hood figure. Only his monstrous and loyal Knight Captain can help him out, while the Head Physician has a hard time keeping enough stock to help the soldiers coming back with worse injuries every day. The Head Cook minds his own business and the Lady of the Palace is becoming stressed with the turn over of palace staff. She tries to drag the Kennel Master and Lieutenant along on an outing, but it doesn't go well. The Tavern Owner sees more than he lets on and keeps his friends and loved ones safe with his skills and coin, while the young Fletcher he trusts with his life pretends not to know his own sister is sneaking off with a mysterious man. The Tailors Son and Kennel Master are both panicked and worried about the dangers their lovers will surely face going into battle.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Reader, Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Reader, Kim Jongdae | Chen/Reader, Kim Jongin | Kai/Reader, Kim Junmyeon | Suho/Reader, Kim Minseok | Xiumin/Reader, Oh Sehun/Reader, Park Chanyeol/Reader, Zhang Yi Xing | Lay/Reader
Series: An Adventurer's Guide to Romance [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1768102
Kudos: 10





	Phoenix

**Author's Note:**

> Hello my lovelies! This series is a collaboration between myself and fellow Tumblr user, @guardians-of-exo. She makes some really beautiful and amazing mood boards, so please check her out!
> 
> This series was born from a mood board she created for fun of Medieval Baekhyun, and my desire to write a series of work that was tied together by one overhead timeline. I might also be missing playing D&D during the pandemic. Thus, this came to fruition when I reached out to her for a collaboration! I write the stories while she Betas and creates masterful mood boards for each piece.
> 
> If you're on Tumblr, please go check it out on my blog, @softly-savage-mint-yoongi. I have a Masterlist and this series is linked there so you can see the mood boards attached to each one.
> 
> I hope you like it!

There’s a sound of pounding footsteps drawing closer and closer from down the corridor, just beyond the fickle door of the kitchen. It’s frantic enough to make you look up from your task, your hands turning idle. You’re not used to commotion in the castle yet, having only been here for little more than one week.

Your hands, in turn, are enough to furrow the strong brow of your mentor, Kyungsoo. Curious why you’d suddenly stopped from helping him salt and tie cuts of pig shoulder, his ears finally catch the sound.

Not a moment later the door bursts open, the old wood slamming back against the stone of the wall as a large man with eyes the size of dinner plates enters the wide room.

“Chanyeol?” Kyungsoo mutters, concern knitting his brow. He stands fully and pats the salt from his hands on his apron as he approaches the taller man, “What’s the matter?”

The towering man swallows air, looking at Kyungsoo and releasing some of the tension in his jaw. “I’m starved,” he says simply. His voice is what you would expect. Deep and husky, but his whiny complaint of an empty stomach is so soft that it pulls a gentle laugh from your lips.

He notices you then, standing there leaning over cuts of meat with fingers full of waxed twine. At first, he simply surveys you, curiously taking you in upon meeting for the first time. It takes but a moment for you to be vexed by him completely.

His eyes sparkle with something lively, a lopsided smile growing across his face and he shakes a bit of his silvery hair from his eyes. Large ears frame the sides of his head, but they look good on him. A handsome face sitting atop a tall and lean frame. He’s fitted with heavy armor, plates shining silver with shades of blacks and browns between the leathers. His mantle is the darkest shade of black, and there’s leather cut and dyed to resemble red scales across the gorget.

This man, Chanyeol you think you heard, appears to be just as stunned by you. His eyes meet yours and his gaze seems to sear your skin. Enough that Kyungsoo’s movement startles you as he makes his way to a table on the opposite wall. You follow him with your eyes briefly until you snap back to the knight in the doorway.

“What did his Majesty say?” the shorter man asks. He leans back against the table and tosses an apple to Chanyeol. The larger man nearly drops it, caught off guard at having to remove his eyes from yours.

He takes a sizeable bite, chewing thoughtfully with a furrow in his brow and a huff. “He won’t let Baekhyun go, obviously.”

“Prince Baekhyun, you mean,” Kyungsoo corrects, but Chanyeol waves him off, frowning at the floor.

“You know that doesn’t work with us. Besides, you never call me Knight Captain, either,” he says dismissively. Something about his uncaring for political status doesn’t surprise you, even though you don’t know him. It makes you smile.

“I’m not training the men hard enough. I’m not training hard enough. These Draugers are brutal,” he comments, staring a hole in the planks as he takes another large bite.

“You’re exhausted,” Kyungsoo nods, unfolding his arms and coming back to you. “Take another piece and go get some rest. Dinner will be served same time as always.”

You think you’re being nonchalant, the way your eyes keep meeting the handsome knight’s across the kitchen, even as he exits and your mentor loudly slaps the cut of meat on the table between you with more salt and a raised brow.

______________________________________________________

Later that evening, after much work to clean up the kitchens just to make a mess of them again tomorrow and a hard earned bath, you’re humming softly to yourself.

You’re a bit too wide-eyed to sleep. It’s a fine evening, clear and just the right side of warm for the middle of Spring. A walk should tire you out enough to rest well.

Reaching the balcony at the end of the staff wing, you step to the edge, overlooking the barracks. You can hear laughter from the sentinel tower a few yards away from the large balcony you stand on as you peer down into the courtyard.

You’re low enough to hear and see a man practicing. Sparring with a few wooden dummies as he dances fluidly between them, gracefully swinging a sword that looks much too heavy for one arm.

You’ve never been out here while anyone was practicing. The hour is typically late enough that the yard of the barracks is empty of soldiers, save for the sentries in the tower beside you. It briefly makes you curious about the conversation earlier this afternoon between your mentor and his friend, the Knight Captain.

A grunt reaches your ears from below. You see the man drop his sword and flop to the ground, spreading his arms wide as he breathes deeply to the stars. His hair glints silver in the light of the moon, and his ears protrude as he pushes it back from his forehead.

A blush tints your cheeks when you realize it’s the handsome Chanyeol. He’s working hard, and you recall Kyungsoo telling him earlier to rest. Biting your lip, you peek to back into the corridor to make sure there’s nobody around.

Grinning, you taunt him, “Didn’t my mentor tell you to rest earlier!?”

Immediately, he sits up, shaking his head and looking up at the balcony. It takes him a moment to register your familiarity. It’s easy to see his answering smile, beaming at you from below.

“I’m caught! I don’t listen very well, do I?” he laughs loudly, waving at you before he looks around the training yard.

You smile, “I suppose the Knight Captain doesn’t have to listen to the Head Cook.” Relaxing, you lean over the railing to talk with him.

From even three stories below, he’s attractive and radiates a warmth that makes you feel several ways at once. Most prominently, desire. An attraction that you should not feel, given the large difference in your status.

“I suppose not,” he says before adding, “But Kyungsoo is terrifying. I don’t want him to poison me.”

You both laugh at his remark until a rumble of thunder can be heard in the distance, interrupting your conversation. Chanyeol rolls his shoulder, plucking his sword from the ground as if it were nothing. “You should get inside before you get soaked,” he tells you. His voice is low.

“Perhaps I like to be kissed by the rain,” you reply simply, biting at your lip again. Your intention is not lost on him, standing there in the dark with the light of the moon catching the sheen of sweat across his skin. He tilts his head sharply once, clicking his teeth.

When he looks up at you again his expression is undeniably mesmerizing, “That’s too bad. I took you for more of a burned by fire kind of woman.”

You smile, deliberately crossing your arms tightly under your bosom as you lean over. “Who said anything about not liking that, too?” you chide.

Chanyeol grins up at you with his wide eyes, about to speak when a door across the yard opens. “Who are you talking to, Captain?” another voice calls. You’re quick to take your leave, out of sight as you walk back to your room.

__________________________________________

Three days. It’s been three long, busy days of working from sun up to sun down in the kitchen with your mentor. The diligent and calm Kyungsoo. It’s been three days of Chanyeol coming into the kitchen to complain about being hungry from working so hard and pestering Kyungsoo for food while he sets you on fire with his stare.

It’s been three days, becoming routine, to walk to the balcony before bed and keep the Captain company. Most nights you’re content to quietly watch him swinging his sword, weaving back and forth between the wooden dummies and listening to its singing as the metal makes clean hits across the dryness. You’ll watch and listen and fall harder for him with every hour until he’s sprawled out on the patchy grass breathing ragged. Then you’ll talk.

It’s been about an hour already tonight as you watch him. You’re beginning to learn his fighting style, anticipating the movements of his dancing until a whizzing sound comes from your left followed by a grappling hook over the outside wall.

Chanyeol stops what he’s doing, his head whipping around the barracks quickly as he trots over. Perplexed, you watch as he shoves his arm into a barrel of rainwater to the shoulder. He comes up with a coiled length of rope. Leaning his sword against the stone wall, he steps back and begins swinging the rope. It whips high when he releases it, right around the outstretched limb of a giant tree looming over the castle wall.

Immediately, a figure draped in black flies to it, grabbing it with a longbow and zip-lining down the length of it into the courtyard with a stealthy grace you are shocked by.

“Yah what did you do?” Chanyeol asks lowly, his voice frustrated as he yanks the rope back to himself from the opposite end, stuffing it back into the barrel.

The hooded figure turns, smiling. “Just doing what I do best. Giving back to the people,” says the man. Although you can’t see his face completely, you know he sees you standing there on the balcony.

“Is that her?” he asks, lightly punching Chanyeol in the arm.

The taller man ignores his comment, flinging the excess water from his hands at the figure. “Were you followed?” he urges, plucking the lone arrow from the quiver at his side. Chanyeol wiggles it at the man, “What happened?”

A familiar laugh rings out quietly, “Nothing, nothing. I had to teach a bastard a lesson is all. Nobody got hurt, I think.” The mysterious man reaches to touch at a chunky cut across Chanyeol’s cheekbone, “Take it easy with the training.” But the Captain shrugs his hand away.

It doesn’t take more than one look to understand this figure is the talk of the city right now. A man dressed in hooded robes flitting about the city at night helping the poor. Especially those on the outskirts of the kingdom most affected by the Drauger problems.

Whoever he is, he seems to confide in the Knight Captain. There are too many people working in the castle to even have a clue who it could be, especially given that Chanyeol knows each and every one of them. It could be anyone.

Wrangling his grappling hook back into a coil, the man turns to you fully, “Pardon the intrusion, m’lady. I didn’t mean to disrupt your date.”

He bows to you dramatically and Chanyeol punches him hard in the shoulder, “Shut it.” The silver haired fighter shakes his hair into his eyes, fidgeting. A habit you think is endearing.

“Goodnight. Don’t stay up too late now children,” the hooded figure taunts, raising a hand and waving behind him as he swipes his last arrow back from Chanyeol’s hand and saunters off to the opposite end of the courtyard.

_____________________________________

Six more days pass without much change, happily allowing the handsome and fiery Knight Captain dominate your thoughts, flirting with one another in stolen moments.

Today started off no different than the rest. The air in the kitchens smells delightfully sweet as Kyungsoo roasts large cuts of pork in a honeyed glaze for an important meeting between the Lords and the King today. You feel lighter than ever, happily dancing around him to do your tasks, quietly humming to yourself and drawing his heart-shaped smile out into the open.

There’s a rapping at the door before it opens. You think it’s Chanyeol until you realize he doesn’t knock, instead revealing an unfamiliar and beautiful woman. She sweeps into the room until she sees you and halts her stride. Since she’s wearing plate armor with the palace crest, you wonder if she knows Chanyeol.

Perplexed, you watch her with a raised brow, looking to Kyungsoo and hoping he’ll dispel your confusion. His smile widens imperceptibly to anyone other than you. The corners pivot down as he fights to outright grin at the woman standing in the middle of the room.

“Ah, I’m sorry,” she begins. “I was looking for Knight Captain Chanyeol. I thought he might be here begging for food.” Offhandedly, you think her laugh is pretty. Everything about her is pretty. She doesn’t look any less stunning in her armor- if anything, the glittering of her silver mail only serves to accentuate her beauty. It almost makes you jealous.

Kyungsoo moves away from the hot kettles, wiping at his brow with the back of his forearm. He stops beside you, hand heavy and warm where it pats you on the shoulder, “Good day, Lieutenant. Thankfully, he hasn’t.” Your mentor pauses, then adds, “But I’m sure he’ll show up later.”

Normally, you wouldn’t think anything other than confirming agreeance with Kyungsoo’s words. This was different, the way he said them as a question, with perhaps room for something more to grow. The air tastes charged with something unknown but not unpleasant.

In your peripheral, the kettle roils noisily and you rush to stir it quickly before its contents bubble over the lip. Your action appears to break the atmosphere around the room. It dissipates like a wisp, leaving you to stare between them and wonder if there had any been any tension at all.

“Right. I’ll take my leave then,” says the Lieutenant, patting her tasset with both palms lightly. “I’m sorry I disturbed your work, Master Cook,” she comments with a sweet smile directed first to him and then you. You return the gesture, watching her retreating form until it disappears through the door.

Immediately, Kyungsoo flocks back to you with a knit brow and a smirk tucked into his cheek, urging you to let him take over. “I’ve got this,” he says to you without looking up from the kettle. “You’ve got to get out there soon, so go ahead and finish plating.”

There’s not enough time to dwell on the sudden appearance of the beautiful Lieutenant. Rather, you follow Kyungsoo’s instruction to finish arranging the meats. With the Drauger issue, staff in the palace has been diminishing, but none of you can bring yourselves to talk about it. As such, you’ve been enlisted- although begrudgingly- by your mentor to serve the Imperial meeting the meal you’ve spent all morning preparing.

With a sigh, you muster up your most polite smile and set to work. Your smile becomes genuine, an excitement carrying your feet gracefully when you enter the great hall carrying a large silver platter on your palm, only after you’ve noticed the Knight Captain standing behind the King at the head of the table.

It’s obvious he was not expecting you here, either. His smile grows mega-watt and he fights to mask it as he watches you set the platter on the table. You exit, bound to return with the next platter followed by a third.

One of the Lords is picky. He is needy for your attention, intent on keeping you as close as possible while you flit around the long table to fill goblets of wine. You do your best not to frown too deeply every time he steals your eyes away from the handsome Knight Captain.

Something in Chanyeol’s poise has shifted since the last time you locked eyes, seconds ago. He appears frustrated at having to remain still, although it’s more a display of powerful resolve than to actually protect his King. Perhaps it’s the hot afternoon sun shining on him through the window, festering beneath the heavy mail he wears and scorching his skin to a rosy flush. The way his hair is becoming damp and sticking to his forehead with sweat. An image you find yourself wishing were reality under different circumstances. Ones where he isn’t wearing anything and neither are you.

Having such thoughts publicly makes your own cheeks heat with blush, realizing how wrapped up in him you are, and he hasn’t even put his hands on you. The thought makes you want to cry, such a tragedy is that revelation.

Chanyeol’s eyes never leave the man speaking to you, desperate to burn him to ash with his stare alone. Normally, helping would be fine and well. Except in that this Lord seems to think he can assert himself to petition you freely. Heavy handed are his unnecessary advances against your hip or arm when he speaks, and you can feel his beady eyes following you around the room, focused on your bosom. You also feel Chanyeol’s gaze raging like an inferno, his aura flaring wildly and ready to explode like gunpowder every time the Lord touches you.

You try your best to ignore the bile that rises from your gut. What are you supposed to do? You’re brand new here, and only the Cook’s assistant. Better yet, what is Chanyeol to do? He’s too important to break his code of conduct, no matter how much it bothers him.

It’s hard for any of you to focus on your duties. The Lord, at least twice your age, flicking his gaze between you and his King. You, trying to avoid the Lord’s reach and watch Chanyeol’s face while serving the table. Chanyeol, trying to keep his composure while his eyes sear daggers into the Lord’s figure when he isn’t watching you. Every time your eyes meet he’s looking at you intensely. As if to ask you, to make certain that you know you’re his.

His unspoken claim over you shouldn’t make you excited, and yet the thought sets a slow and heavy heat in your center.

Two hours pass this way, running in and out between the great hall and the kitchens and being as polite as you can tolerate to the Lord that continues to advance upon you, until Kyungsoo comes to find you and pull you back to the kitchens.

“I’m sorry my Lords, my King, but may I request my assistant return to her duties?” he asks calmly, folding his hands and letting his gaze plow across the room.

Even the King seems to accept Kyungsoo’s disturbance. “We’re nearly finished, you may,” he acquiesces, waving you off.

On the walk back, your mentor is silent but his brow is furrowed, expression set in a frustrated scowl. “Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry it took so long,” you apologize.

Kyungsoo remains silent until you’re through the door and standing in the safety of the main kitchen. He gently grasps your wrist and spins you to face him. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I came to check on you and could plainly see someone was bothering you, though,” he says. His eyes are large as they survey your face. His jaw is tight.

“I’m fine. It was just a Lord making passes at me,” you reply, shrugging it off. He didn’t hurt you, and it’s over.

Kyungsoo reels back for a moment, his head whipping to the door just as a large man appears. You didn’t hear him coming down the corridor, and yet, the Knight Captain is standing in front of you looking entirely displeased. A deep frown sours his handsome features.

He reaches back to slam the door closed with more force than necessary, causing you to flinch from the sound. His eyes are wild as he takes one long look at Kyungsoo before he takes your wrist gingerly in his grasp.

There’s a palpable silence between you. The dark color of his eyes pleads with you momentarily until Chanyeol remembers where he is. Standing in the kitchens of the Palace he protects. For the family he swore his life to.

He blinks rapidly and swallows thickly, releasing your wrist and stepping back. A breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding wheezes past your lips. You touch at your skin subconsciously, feeling a pleasurable burn where his fingers grasped you although you remain unharmed.

He huffs audibly and turns around, leaving you in the wake of your mutual frustration. The cloud of your lust is so dense you physically wave your hand in front of your face to clear the air.

Spinning on your heel, face aflame in embarrassment of such an act in front of Kyungsoo, you peek at him to realize he is a saint. You’re very thankful that he lets you keep your modesty and privacy.

The butterflies in your stomach cause disruption to your appetite for the rest of the day. Kyungsoo sends you out of the kitchens early when you refuse dinner, under strict orders to rest.

Given his blessing, you hoped a long soak in the tub would quell the fluttering and churning in your stomach. For the most part, it did. The heat calmed your nerves until the water turned tepid and forced you to crawl into your bed for a nap.

Hours have passed when you’re disturbed by a knocking at your door and someone calling your name. Your eyes open, adjusting to the darkness left by the sun’s disappearance from the sky.

“Y/N.” It comes again once… twice. It’s a familiar voice. One that makes you shake the sleep from your eyes to answer.

The knocking sounds urgent upon your approach. When you open it, you blush. Much to your heart’s delight, it’s Chanyeol.

“Knight Captain? What’s wrong, has something happened?” you ask, rubbing the last remnants of sleep from your eyes.

He huffs and glances around the dimly lit hall. You understand what he wants and step aside, allowing him into your room. Immediately, he shoves the door closed and crowds you against it.

Fully awake, you swallow around the thickness of your throat. His eyes are bright, even in the darkness. The moon spills a bit of light through your open windows. It’s just enough to catch the edges of his silver hair in a glow.

Everything about him is still except for his eyes and his breath. You’re not sure if it’s his or yours but you can hear a heart thundering against ribs between you.

Briefly, his eyes close as he curls his lips over his teeth in a determined line. “Tell me,” he croaks.

You look up, meeting his stare when he reopens his eyes. Throat dry, you lick your lips and swallow again. Chanyeol’s eyes follow the motion. “Tell you what?” you whisper.

The Knight Captain leans closer, letting his hands curl into fists against the door on either side of your head. His withering self-control sets an inferno under your skin. Ironic that the one who makes you feel like you’re on fire is the one you crave to soothe the flames.

His lips are close enough that you can see the faint scar running down his bottom lip and chin. “Don’t make me say it,” he pleads. “Even as the personification of fire itself, I’m burning alive.“ He swallows once, "I’m desperate.”

A smile curls your lips after a moment, realizing what his statement meant. “Put your hands on me,” you sigh.

And so he does. His grip is precise. Certain and strong with where he lets them touch first. One like a brand searing into the back of your neck, holding you there so his lips can meet your own. The other pulls your hips from the door to have you flush against his body.

Immediately, your arms reach for his shoulders, matching him in your desire. Your nails scrape across the broad expanse of his back before you decide to tangle them in the back of his hair and pull.

The Knight Captain growls against your lips, his tongue demanding to dance with yours as he tries to consume you whole. His hands are on both hips now, easily bunching your night dress high enough to hoist your thighs around his hips.

His mouth moves, teeth nipping under your jaw and biting harder at the side of your neck. He places wet, open-mouthed kisses down your chest as far as he can comfortably crane his neck. A sharp moan breaks from your lips as he bites hard into the flesh above your constricted breasts, sucking the flesh after to soothe his bite.

He carries you with only slight difficulty through the darkness across the room to your bed, letting your body greet the linens softly. It doesn’t surprise you that Chanyeol is a man of purpose. When he puts his mind to something, there’s no uncertainty. His movements are measured and resolute, only pausing to admire the way you’re looking at him from below.

Although you don’t need to, you beg for his touch with a whine you couldn’t have suppressed if you tried. His eyes flick up to your face and there’s an explicit hunger emanating from his posture, further accentuated by the boyish grin tucked into his cheek.

Chanyeol bends, caging you beneath his frame as two fingers pluck impatiently at the knot of your gown. He doesn’t bother to untie it completely, satisfied with the loosened freedom he gains- enough to pull the bodice down roughly, exposing your breast to his eyes.

His mouth follows, tongue and breath like flame licking at your skin. The attention he laves across it makes you squirm, moaning praise. Your fingers thread into his hair again, pulling the strands.

Your lover moans, a deep and breathy sound that has you squeezing your thighs together. Chanyeol doesn’t miss the action, wasting no time in bringing a hand to your center and rubbing to bring you some relief. He savors your cries of pleasure, drinking them in with a purr.

Suddenly, he sits up, flinging his tunic from his frame. With eyes half-open you gaze at him. He’s pink, you notice. From the tips of his charming ears, across his cheeks to his nose to his broad chest. As if possessed, your hands rise of their own volition, sweeping your palms over his skin to feel. You wonder in amazement how he handles the heat of his own body, not unlike a blazing inferno beneath the surface.

You admire him for as long as he can stand, comparing him to that of a phoenix. Burning bright and hot, immortal and infinite and magical. Powerful as the creator of fire itself, and too beautiful to touch.

And yet you do, letting him burn you to ash just to be reborn as his all over again. He has you this way at once. And again at the moon’s peak, and then again just before the sun begins to kiss the sky.

You dread leaving the bed. For the moment, you don’t. You choose to let your fingertips wander the expanse of the Knight Captain’s back while he dozes. It reminds you of a battlefield. Bruises, scars old and new and a few pocked marks paint him all over. A bruise the color of wisteria vine curls around a blade of his shoulder. A long and jagged line saws across his spine to his ribs. There’s an unnatural ripple of flesh lined with small dotted scars on either side curving with the swell of his buttocks.

“None of those fights I lost,” he slurs, voice heavy from use and the cusp of sleep. With a relaxed sigh, he pulls your fingers up to his lips, turning his head to face you against the pillow.

You smile at him, “I’m glad for it.”

His grin widens, a gentle chuckle growing from deep within his chest, “The palace nurse sometimes isn’t.” He stretches, sitting up on his palms to rub sleep from his eyes, “She keeps me alive, but she says I try to kiss death too often.”

Tilting your head, you admire him in the light of the sunrise, skin glowing with the embers of your shared desire, quelled for the moment.

“Says I’ll put her in an early grave with worry.” Chanyeol’s smile is easy as he stands. His hair is a wreck, and you touch at your own, suddenly aware that it likely looks worse than his.

You dress in relative silence, stealing glances at one another across the room with soft smiles. You’re just fixing your hair when a loud knock at your door makes Chanyeol jump back, clutching his naked chest. He’s about to fetch his shirt when a voice stops him in his tracks.

“You’re late!” Kyungsoo’s stern tenor reaches through the door. With wild eyes you look to Chanyeol, who simply mirrors your expression.

Clearing your throat, “I’m sorry Kyungsoo, I’m coming now!” You reach for the door but Chanyeol stops you with an arm, spinning you into his chest.

You realize just how much of a romantic he is, tilting your face up to meet his lips quickly. Just as soon, he releases you and steps away so he can’t be seen from the open door.

Pulling it open, Kyungsoo is not amused when his eyes meet yours. He waits for a moment, finally turning away and saying, “I was expecting to see the Knight Captain on the other side of your door. I’m glad, I was afraid I’d have to poison him.”

“Goodness, no! I didn’t sleep well since I was feeling ill yesterday!” Your answer comes a little too suspiciously, laughing loudly while you follow him down the corridor.

Kyungsoo smiles but says nothing, pretending not to see the dark bruise peeking over your bodice. He pretends, when Chanyeol lies through his teeth later that morning about why he has the appetite of a dragon, that he didn’t see Chanyeol’s discarded tunic laying on the floor beside your bed.


End file.
